Lovesick
by TheBlueVampireQueenofAbiland
Summary: Things are not looking good for Ragamuffin. He was wrong to think his problems would just solve themselves if he got back his vampire form. Instead, they're a lot worse. His feelings for Lenore are at an all-time high, which would be great if he thought there was even a remote chance that she liked him back, and. . . well. . . there's that too. . . He just might be dying. . .
1. Prologue

_Prologue_

He leaned against the rough brick building, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. The night air was cold against his pale skin, but if the teen noticed he didn't show any signs of it. Who could even say that he felt it, dressed as he was in a pitch black suit that hung off his slim fame in a way that seemed intentional, rather than simply ill-fitting. Dark hair, shorter in the back than the front, fell in his eyes, masking their color from anyone that happened to look. If anyone had gotten close enough to see beyond that, to catch an eyeful of the red irises, maybe even a glimpse of a fang. . .

Well, Ragamuffin didn't really _do_ pretty.

No one got too close, however, and he stayed as he was, back against the weather-beaten building as he watched the crowd mill about on the dusky streets. His hidden eyes skimmed around in a motion almost like REM, tracking movements without staying in one place very long. For if they lingered, even for a moment, he could feel a pang of hunger shoot through him as he found it harder to tear his gaze away the longer he stared. His hands clamped tightly into fists, catching the sides of his pockets in their grip, then loosened again almost as fast.

_Not yet._ Some part of him said. _Not yet._

Ragamuffin stood there for almost an hour, long enough that his hunger became an almost tangible being. Just as his internal chant of _not yet_ was about to be overrun by his hunger's words of _now, now, NOW_ his sweeping gaze landed on a teenage girl directly across the street from him. Somewhere in his head he'd been keeping track of her and he realized that she hadn't moved from the spot ever since she'd arrived, almost fifteen minutes ago. Ragamuffin tilted his head slightly, wondering if now was the time he could-

She waved, sensing his gaze on her. It wasn't one of the cheerful waves he would so often receive from Lenore, but a coy wagging of fingers that implied a quiet secret shared. Her smile was one she probably thought was tempting, and perhaps it would have been if it had been aimed at anyone but him. As it was he was sparing only the slightest of glances to her face, his attention instead focused on tracing the smooth lines of her neck.

He crossed the street in a few strides, avoiding the racing crowd with seemingly no effort, giving the girl a slow smile that made her heart pick up to a rhythm he could sense from yards away. Words were exchanged, and afterwards he found that for the afterlife of him he couldn't remember what he said to coax her to leave the crowded street. All he knew was that he'd gotten her to leave, to slip into an alley and over to a dark, secluded corner behind an abandoned building, where there was no one to see.

She was probably expecting a kiss.

That wasn't. . . _quite_. . . what she got.

* * *

Afterwards, Ragamuffin slipped into the empty building, tracing his way through the dead hallways until he found a bathroom. The only reason he did so was to try to get the blood off his face, scrub away the evidence of what he'd done so he could slip back through the streets without attracting attention. Yet when he reached for the doorknob, fingers closing around the tarnished brass, leaving behind a sticky smear of crimson as they slid around, greased by the red liquid. . .

. . .he felt his insides lurch slightly as he stared, then he cupped his other hand over his mouth as an unfamiliar feeling settled in the pit of his stomach like he'd swallowed a rock. He felt a bit lightheaded, his blood soaked hand coming up to brace him against the wall, preventing him from falling over. At the same time he felt like a vice was tightening around his midsection, forcing what was inside up through his throat-

Crimson eyes widened as Ragamuffin realized what the long-forgotten sensation was and he flung the bathroom door open with a bang, staggering over to the toilet. He tumbled to his knees, hands sliding around in red as they pressed against the white porcelain in a vain attempt to hold him upright. He felt his chest constrict even more and his stomach clenched, a horrible force shoving a burning liquid up and out of his mouth even as he struggled to keep it down. Thick red liquid spattered against the floor, over his hands, and into the fixture in front of him. It was the first time in hundreds of years he'd thrown up, the feeling no less horrible for its unfamiliarity. Ragamuffin briefly wondered how humans could stand it before another round of gagging assaulted him and he fell forwards onto his bloodstained hands.

Slowly, the wet retching gave way to dry heaves, which in turn subsided into an awful silence. Ragamuffin brushed one shaking hand over his mouth, not surprised in the least when it came away coated in blood like the floor around him. He was glad he just drank the girl's blood rather than devouring her like he sometimes did when he hadn't eaten in a while- just the sight of all the blood on the floor almost sent him gagging all over again, he probably would have lost it if there was. . . other stuff.

Ragamuffin stood on shaky legs, leaning heavily against the wall, and caught sight of his reflection in the mirror. It was hungry, almost feral, and Ragamuffin had a hard time identifying it as belonging to him. Blood coated his face from the bottom of his jaw to just below his nose, and smears from his hands reached up into his hairline where the thinnest layers had already started to dry, slicking his hair down over his eyes and gluing it in place. His fangs winked accusingly back at him and Ragamuffin turned away.

This was the face that he had longed to see looking back at him instead of the rounded, plush face of a harmless doll. And, in centuries past, he probably would have given a bloody grin to the gory face smirking back at him from the looking glass. But now, for a reason utterly lost to him, the sight of his own crimson-soaked face almost sent him gagging for the second time that night.

What was happening to him?

What the _hell _was happening to him?

* * *

**BVQA:** Well, hello and welcome to what is probably the darkest story I have ever written! Even though I swore to myself I would never write _anything_ above K+, well. . . I decided that since it's gonna be rated purely for blood (lotsa blood!) and gore that it was ok.

SOME THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW:

I have just watched the animated episodes made for Lenore, I have not read the comic. At all. I want to, but at the moment I _haven't_. Keep this in mind if you feel the need to tell me that the characters are OOC or I have made various inaccuracies with the rules of this particular universe. You can still tell me when I get things wrong, just refrain from writing long tirades about how it's 'almost like I never even _read_ the comic!' because, duh, I haven't.

Another thing: I don't care what age Ragamuffin was actually bitten at (Sixteen? Nineteen? Am I in the ballpark?), I'm making him thirteen so pairing him up with Lenore is less awkward (even though, _technically_, since they've both been around for hundreds of years the less-than-a-decade difference shouldn't matter at all).

Um. . . I don't know if he can see his reflection or not, but mirrors play a big part in my story so please just plaaaaay alooong. . .

I'm pretty sure that covers everything. So, keep reading if you want. . . you've been warned!


	2. Chapter 1: Skin Deep

**BVQA:** Sooooo. . . . first off, I would like to say a HUGE thank-you to my AWESOME editor TheyCallMeChicky. While she may be a Nazi when it comes to grammar and spelling, that was EXACTLY what I needed! She saved this chapter from having some really, REALLY stupid errors, so remember that while you're reading!

Second, I have now read issues 5-8 of the actual comic, so I'm hoping my portrayal of the characters is going to get better.

I'm also pretty sure Ragamuffin cursed me for making him throw up in the prologue, because I spent a good chunk of my morning yesterday puking in my friend Aderpygirl3's sink (I'M STILL SORRY ABOUT THAT!). Little did Ragamuffin know, this just gives me a way to write his barfing scenes even more realistically!

Now, without further ado, here's chapter one of Lovesick! Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 1

Skin Deep

Ragamuffin slipped inside Lenore's mansion as silently as he was able. As a vampire, he could eliminate noises that most humans weren't even aware of- the subtle thud of a heartbeat, the quiet whisper of breath- and years of practicing the art of stealth had made him light on his toes. He could creep up behind an unsuspecting human and bite them before they'd even considered the possibility of his presence. Even if it wasn't a skill he used very often (he far preferred tricking his prey with clever words), it was something he had to know for the simple reason of professional pride.

Ragamuffin cupped his hand over his mouth as the recent gagging fit he'd had threatened to come back all over again at just the thought of feeding. He shook it off and continued down the hallway, knowing that no one in the house could even begin to hear him coming.

. . .Of course, even with all his skill, any amount of stealth was irrelevant when the person he was trying to avoid the most was camped out in the middle of the hallway waiting for him.

"Ragamuffin! You're back!" Lenore cried happily, jumping off the ground where she'd been curled up and tackling him in a bear hug. Ragamuffin choked on his gasp of surprise, feeling his internal organs shift about half a foot inward at the sudden and intense pressure. It was at times like these when he could completely understand how many people Lenore had 'accidentally' killed. . . had he been human, her hugs would have been lethal. She really didn't understand her own strength. Besides, Lenore didn't really understand how fragile those still among the living were after spending so long as one of the undead. It was unfathomable to her that simple things like, say, getting your nose cut off with a kitchen knife or being whacked over the head with a giant wooden mallet could prove fatal. Sometimes she couldn't even tell the difference between the living and the dead! Despite all that, though, Lenore had strong morals and had, so far as he knew, never hurt anyone on purpose besides Mr. Gosh.

"Hi, Lenore." Ragamuffin managed, slipping his hands under her constricting arms and gently prying them loose. She beamed up at him with her mismatched eyes and a wide smile, a smile that suddenly dropped into a pout as he watched.

"Where _were_ you?" She asked petulantly, eyes scanning his face for some clue as to where he'd been. She was probably just looking for any one of his little 'tells', but even so he found himself wondering if he'd missed some smear of blood when he was cleaning up. Soon her scrutiny became unbearable and he dropped his gaze under the guise of trying to avoid treading on her toes as he slipped past her down the hallway.

"Town." He answered simply, hoping she'd drop the subject. If anything, his monosyllabic answer intrigued her more.

"Doing _what?_" she let her now-empty hands drop to her waist, leaning forwards and rocking back on her heels. "You were gone for _hours_, and you _know_ Taxidermy won't let me watch _anything_ but 'educational' TV when he baby-sits."

Playing the guilt card was not going to work on Ragamuffin– he knew and she knew that she loved when Taxidermy swung by. Still, Ragamuffin saw his chance to change the subject and leapt for it with both hands outstretched.

"Speaking of which. . ." He turned slowly back on his heels to give his words more weight. "I see that you 'forgot' to mention to him that your bedtime is eight thirty, _again_, and now it's five in the morning." He crossed his arms and gave her his best I'm-waiting-for-an-explanation-and-it-better-be-good look. This time, it was Lenore's turn to drop her gaze.

"Um. . ." she said offhandedly. "I may have. . . forgotten. . . a little." She shifted her feet as if hoping they would distract him from what was obviously a lie.

"Bed," he said, and once again the single syllable answer made her bold enough to open her mouth to try to argue, so he followed it up with, "Now." To prevent any further dawdling, he scooped her up in his arms and began carrying her, kicking and screaming, down the hallway.

"Lemme down!" she giggled, slapping playfully at his arms, but he just tightened his grip around her knees and shoulders. Still, he had to suppress a small smile at her antics. She always seemed so full of energy, unlike most undead who shuffled through life as if they'd remained stuck in their coffins. On impulse, he spun in a smooth circle, swirling Lenore's pale blonde hair around her equally pale face as she continued to laugh. She stretched out her hands, seemingly attempting to grasp hold of the wind itself, and tossed her head back to better observe the rushing colors that made up the world. . .

. . .treating Ragamuffin to a completely unobstructed view of her slim neck. A stab of hunger shot through him, reminding him that he technically hadn't had anything to eat yet, and he quickly caught the back of her head with his hand and slid it upwards so that the delicate curve of her chin and her feathery hair once again obscured her tantalizing throat. At her questioning look, he mumbled something about not wanting to drop her and strode towards her bedroom. She continued to let her hands dangle beneath her and seemed to be trying to brush them against the thick red carpets that lined each long corridor. Ragamuffin could quite literally see his footprints behind him for about six steps before the springy padding puffed up and filled in the spaces once more.

Ragamuffin found Lenore's bedroom with ease, as spending time as a doll for so long had given him a chance to memorize every room in the big old house. Well, except for the back rooms. And the basement. He hadn't dared to go near those rooms in his vulnerable plush form, since there were _things_ inside that growled at him when he got within fifty feet.

Ragamuffin pushed the bedroom door open, rolling Lenore over his shoulder with the other hand, and while she let out more of her adorable protests he tossed her onto the bed with a creaking of springs and a bounce as she landed. She sat up when she hit the blankets for a second time, hair in disarray and collar popped up to her ears, and stuck her little pink tongue out at him.

"Jerk!" she shouted. Ragamuffin just grinned.

"You know as well as I do that when you stay up too late you can't get up until noon the next day. When you can't find the energy to get to the library before it closes, don't come crying to me that you don't get to read the next issue of Johnny The Homicidal Maniac."

And with that, Ragamuffin shut the door on his exuberant housemate, sighing with relief that he hadn't had to tell her the real reason he'd been in town. Someone like her wouldn't be able to accept the vampiric code of morals. . . which pretty much boiled down to no morals at all. After centuries of rejection- his parents, his siblings, and generally everyone he came into contact with- he wasn't ready to loose the enigmatic dead girl who'd grown so close to him.

Ragamuffin began to walk as he thought, threading his way through the mansion in an almost unconscious motion. He could hear the gentle sound of turning pages coming from the sitting room, a tiny sound that only his acute hearing could pick up, and knew that it had to be Taxidermy. Sure enough, when Ragamuffin reached the drawing room, Taxidermy was perched in one of the overstuffed, ornate armchairs, halfway through a novel bigger than Ragamuffin and Lenore's heads. The vampire boy stood in the entryway for a few moments, shoving his hands deep in his pockets. He knew that even if Taxidermy seemed utterly unaware of his presence he had probably known he was coming since before Ragamuffin had even decided to come himself. Almost nothing was known about who- or even _what_- Taxidermy was, and while Ragamuffin didn't particularly care about his species (he picked friends for personality alone) it was sometimes irksome to be so aware and yet uneducated about Taxidermy's abilities.

Ragamuffin's train of thought derailed and crashed to a fiery, burning halt as Taxidermy slid a gilt-edged bookmark in between the pages of his book and gently closed it. He placed it on his lap and folded his hands on top of it, lifting his black eyes to look directly into Ragamuffin's red ones.

"You were gone for quite some time." He said in his smooth, cultured accent. Ragamuffin shifted uncomfortably, knowing he'd probably inconvenienced Taxidermy by being gone longer than planned.

"Yeah, sorry about that." He said. "Thanks for watching Lenore, though. I'm still scared she'll blow up the house with no one to watch her."

Taxidermy inclined his head in what was his version of a sarcastic smile. "You're only three years older than her, Ragamuffin, and three times as likely to get into trouble. Maybe I should start babysitting _you_ as well."

Ragamuffin kept a straight face. "I'm probably older than you are. Maybe _you_ need a babysitter."

Taxidermy, without any facial features besides his eyes, somehow managed to grin. "Four centuries is hardly old, especially when one reflects on the childish antics you and Lenore get up to." His invisible smile slipped slowly away and was replaced with his typical non-expression. "She kept asking where you were, you know."

Ragamuffin could feel the subtle sensation of Taxidermy probing for information, and he immediately lost his smirk and clammed up. Nuh uh. He was _so _not talking about this. "Yes, she mentioned." He said, avoiding Taxidermy's knowing gaze.

"I didn't tell her where you went." Taxidermy continued, his goosebump-inducing stare locked on Ragamuffin as he turned and flopped down into the armchair opposite Taxidermy, shoulders hooking over one armrest and legs thrown akimbo over the other.

"I didn't tell _you_ where I went." Ragamuffin snapped, turning his head to glower at Taxidermy. His eyes had probably started glowing an angry shade of crimson, but Taxidermy didn't even flinch. Instead, he lifted his chin in an approximation of raised eyebrows.

"You were out feeding, weren't you?"

_Busted,_ Ragamuffin thought as he glared fixedly at the wall, feeling his cheeks flush with anger and embarrassment. It hadn't been a question. Taxidermy rarely said anything about what he and Lenore did when he wasn't around, so coming from him this was almost a lecture.

"It's alright to admit it." Taxidermy told him, and Ragamuffin lifted his gaze to Taxidermy's for the smallest fraction of a second before dropping it again.

"I don't want to talk about it." He managed through gritted teeth.

"That's up to you, then." Taxidermy said simply. "It's your choice, and I can respect that. But you do know you can't keep lying to Lenore for very long. She's quite a bright young lady, and she'll find out eventually even if you don't tell her. Something makes me think that she'll be more upset that you didn't tell her than about. . . you know."

"Yeah, I do know." Ragamuffin growled, his tone sounding harsh and unnecessary even to him. "I've dealt with this before, so butt out!"

There was a moment of hurt silence, stretching out in Ragamuffin's head and giving him the time needed to regret his sharp words. Taxidermy was really just trying to help, and just because Ragamuffin loathed the words of advice didn't make them any less true. Just because he _wanted_ to deny reality a place in his life, didn't mean that it was any more possible.

Ragamuffin's shoulders sagged and he looked up at Taxidermy, seeing the sting of his hasty insults reflected back at in Taxidermy's shining black eyes. Ragamuffin was suddenly struck by the sheer _irony_ of the two of them. Taxidermy's fearsome visage could give Stephen King nightmares, seemingly nothing more than several creatures of Hell left to rot for years and then roughly stitched together backwards by a demonic three-year old. Yet he was the gentlest creature than Ragamuffin had yet to meet, certainly not someone who would rip out the throat of a teenage girl just because he was hungry or hurl abuse at someone who was just trying to help him. Ragamuffin, on the other hand, had been called 'handsome', 'hot', and even 'sexy' by his numerous victims, and look where they'd gotten by trusting _him_. It didn't really matter how attractive someone's face was when it was covered in blood and buried in your intestines.

_I guess you really _can't_ judge by appearances,_ Ragamuffin thought with a heavy sarcastic overtone. _All that 'beauty is only skin deep' shit might just apply here._

Out loud he just sighed and, in the gentlest tone he could produce, muttered, "Sorry. That was uncalled for. Just because I'm about to wreck my life for the millionth time doesn't mean I should take it out on you."

Taxidermy stood, placing a hand on Ragamuffin's shoulder. "You're not about to wreck your life, Ragamuffin. Lenore already knows you're a vampire and she's fine with it. You're her friend. This won't ruin your friendship with her."

Ragamuffin just sighed again. _Just because I'm her friend isn't going to help._ He thought quietly. _I'm not even sure she remembers that vampires drink blood, not after how long I've spent as a doll._ Ragamuffin quickly blocked out that train of thought, instead standing up and hooking his thumbs into his pockets. "Whatever," he muttered. "I'll walk you to the door."

"There's no need." Taxidermy assured him. "I know the way. Been here often enough."

Ragamuffin nodded, then remembered an earlier question. "By the way, why didn't you send Lenore to bed earlier? She gets. . . weird. . . if she's up past ten."

Taxidermy replied with another one of his invisible smiles as he made his way to the door. "I did. Several times, in fact. After the fifth attempt she told me flat out that she wasn't going to be able to sleep until you got home, so I shouldn't even _try_ to make her go to bed." Taxidermy managed to widen his nonexistent grin. "Make of that what you will. I'm going to go home now."

Then he was gone, before Ragamuffin got the chance to ask what the _hell_ that was supposed to mean. He could, of course, always chase after Taxidermy and demand an explanation, but Ragamuffin knew that even if he got to the hallway even a _second_ after Taxidermy that the strange individual would have vanished like smoke on the wind. With a heavy sigh, the teenage vampire admitted defeat and flopped facedown on the couch. He took a deep breath, acute vampire senses allowing him to pick up the thick, herbal scent mixed with the slightest bit of something darker that Lenore left behind her as she swept through the mansion. He crinkled his nose. It wasn't an unpleasant smell; rather, it was actually almost overwhelmingly nice as he breathed it in. The musty smell of slight decay was somehow appealing when mixed with that other fragrance that reminded him strongly of cinnamon and sage.

Ragamuffin closed his eyes, blocking out the outside world as he focused on the tantalizing aroma. As he did so the smell slowly became stronger, his senses becoming bathed in the amazing, amazing smell, so close he could almost reach out and touch it. . .

"Oh." He murmured, rolling over onto his back and opening his eyes. "Hi Lenore. What are you doing out of bed?"

Lenore looked quite adorable in her purple nightgown (which wasn't so unlike her regular outfit) and cap, hugging a pillow as big as she was tight across her chest and scrubbing sleepily at her eyes. Still, adorable or not, she was up past her bedtime and Ragamuffin was seriously considering chaining her to the bed so that she'd just freaking sleep already.

"Ragamuffin. . ." She murmured into her pillow. "I can't sleep without you there."

Ragamuffin sighed in equal parts annoyance and exhaustion. "You do realize I'm not a doll anymore, right?"

"Yeah, but. . . I'll get nightmares." Lenore's eyes widened slightly in fear. She really was terrified of those. Since the dreamcatcher thing had been a resounding failure, Lenore had taken to dragging Ragamuffin into her room at night to 'protect her' from the evil that was tainting her dreams. Mostly he just wound up snoring on her pillow while she hugged him to her with her slim little hands, but for some reason it worked and she hadn't had a nightmare since.

Still, he wasn't exactly sure it was going to work all that well this time around. "Lenore. . ." He began in his most reasonable tone of voice, "Vampires don't sleep at night, we sleep during the daytime."

"It's _almost_ daytime, right?" At Ragamuffin's skeptical look, Lenore's eyes started to well up with tears. Ragamuffin winced. "Please? I'm. . . I'm _scared_, Ragamuffin."

Ragamuffin knew he'd lost. He couldn't stand to see Lenore cry, and it would just be ten times worse now that he knew it was his fault. He let out a groan and sat up. "Fine. Go grab your blanket. I didn't have anything else to do tonight anyway."

Lenore let out an overjoyed cry and gave him a hug– not one of her usual bone-crushing ones, but one that was gentle and full of thanks. It lasted only a few seconds before she danced down the hallway, presumably off to her bedroom to grab her blanket like Ragamuffin had asked her. He watched her go, wondering just what he was getting himself into, and resigning himself to a day of rest that would be fitful at best. _At least she won't have nightmares,_ He thought. That alone would have made it impossible for him to sleep. Hearing her sit up in bed screaming after some night terror had attacked her was even worse than having a bad dream himself, and it would usually keep him up for hours after she'd slipped back into whatever world she entered when asleep.

When Lenore reentered the room, it was with a smile big enough to cover the continent and a black fluffy blanket big enough to drown in. Ragamuffin slid over to the end of the couch and Lenore curled up next to him, resting her head on his shoulder and snuggling into his chest with a huge yawn.

"Night, Raggy," she mumbled. He winced at the pet name, thinking about his far more ancient nickname of The Eternal Vampire Scourge. Somehow it had a bit more dignity to it.

"Please don't call me that," he murmured just as quietly as she had spoken, but Lenore was already asleep. He almost rolled his eyes but smiled slightly instead, pulling the blanket up to cover them both. She murmured something indecipherable as his arm brushed against her shoulders and he froze, not wanting to wake her. Lenore rolled over, jostling Ragamuffin's arm, and pulled her knees to her chest as she curled up even more. She turned her head slightly, fitting her cheek against the palm of his hand, and sighed happily before falling still again. She seemed to be having a good dream.

Ragamuffin, on the other hand, was not exactly in a comfortable position. His right arm was now trapped at an awkward angle, held in place by Lenore, and his left was stuck underneath her back where she'd rolled over onto it. He could feel the phantoms of pins and needles starting up in both hands and made a face. Apparently it didn't matter to his nerve endings that he didn't have circulation to cut off anymore, they were going to keep proceeding like he did.

Ragamuffin sighed- this time it was pure annoyance- and rested his chin on top of Lenore's head, catching a whiff of her scent as he did so. He took a deep breath, taking in the smell, before burying his face in her hair and letting it overwhelm him. Somehow it calmed him down and he quickly forgot all about his various aches and pains, closing his eyes and letting himself shut down. To his utter surprise, despite his protests about being nocturnal and no longer a child's plaything, he slipped in a deep, untroubled slumber within a few moments. There the two stayed, each held in the other's arms, for the few remaining hours of the night and well into the morning.

Ragamuffin smiled in his sleep and felt a warmth that ran much further than skin deep.


	3. Chapter 2: Good Cop, Bad Cop

**BVQA:** Well, here's the second chapter of Lovesick! Sorry about the wait. Once again, it's not me you have to thank for this, it's my awesome beta-reader/editor TheyCallMeChicky. This chapter is SO FREAKING LONG, because I couldn't get to an ending point. Then my awesome BN came up to me at school and threatened to kill me with a toothbrush if I didn't finish up, which was bad for me but good for you readers. *shrugs* Oh, well.

**B/N:** This is a beta-reader's note, hence the B. I'm TheyCallMeChicky, the BVQA's beta-reader. On receiving this chapter, my first thought was "This has to be two". My second thought was "Oh, that's what she meant by 'twice as long as chapter one.' My third thought was "Holy shit." You really don't get to see my comments, but I swear they're funny.

**BVQA:** I can agree. I'm honestly sad that you don't get to read the notes, because they had me cracking up. Anyway, without further ado, chapter two of Lovesick!

Chapter 2

Good cop, bad cop

Ragamuffin woke up on the couch just as the sun was starting to set. He cracked one eye open, glaring at the window on the wall behind him and tipping his head backwards to do so. He made a face at the stinging rays of light that slipped through a gap in the curtain and tried to lift his hand to shield his eyes. To his utter confusion, his hand remained trapped under. . . something. . .

Ragamuffin brought his chin back down and saw that there was a second figure lying on top of him, completely obscured by the black fuzzy blanket that was pulled up to his shoulders. His sleep-addled mind struggled to make sense of that for a few moments before he realized that it had to be Lenore, since she was the only other person in the mansion with him, but why. . ?

With a start, Ragamuffin remembered the night before and suddenly everything started to make sense. He sat up slightly with a groan, feeling Lenore shift in her sleep as he did so, and pulled the blanket down to see the ten-year-old undead girl miraculously still conked out. He tried his hardest to recall exactly when she'd actually fallen asleep last night, but somehow couldn't manage it. It must have been pretty late for her to have slept through the day with him. She usually objected even to five-minute naps, so this was definitely a first. To find her sleeping so soundly, arms wrapped around him like he was still her little rag doll, was a complete shock to him.

Ragamuffin pulled his arm gently out from under her and absently ran his fingers through her pale blonde hair. It was soft against his slim hand, tangling around his thumb and little finger and tickling the spaces in between. He only had a hazy memory of what she'd looked like before her untimely demise, but he could see that her death had bleached most of the pigment from her hair. On the whole it was a nearly-white yellow, but there were still streaks where it retained its original, brighter shade and a couple places where earth from her various burials had stained it a light brown. _Brings new meaning to the phrase 'dirty blonde'_, Ragamuffin thought with a light smirk, amused by his own teenage wit and enjoying the feeling of Lenore's tresses sliding across his palm. He closed his eyes and lifted one of her tangled curls to his face, breathing in the herbal scent that he'd been basking in all night, and then. . .

. . .then he realized exactly what he was doing and jerked his hand back, sitting abruptly upright and dumping Lenore back against the couch in the process. Her hands were still clasped around his waist when she woke up with a start, suddenly realizing the close proximity they were in and toppling backwards herself, releasing Ragamuffin's waist. Ragamuffin himself scooted away, now fully awake, and reached the edge of the couch without realizing it until his pinwheeling arms found nothing but air. He fell off the sofa, hitting the ground with a painful thud. He lay on his back for a moment, feeling his head start to throb where he'd banged it on the ground, before looking up and meeting Lenore's questioning gaze.

"That looked like it hurt," she remarked, eyebrows raised. Ragamuffin sat up, putting a hand to the back of his head.

"Nice observation," he managed, then noticed the sleepy, glazed look in her pale eyes. "Sorry to wake you." He added as an afterthought.

"'S okay," she said with a yawn. "Nothing a bucket of cold water can't fix." Lenore paused. "Or a shower. Yeah, that sounds like a better idea." She stood, stretched, then reached out to help him to his feet. He took the hand with a warm smile of gratitude and stood up, noticing Lenore's height for what wasn't the first time. At thirteen, he really ought to tower over her by a foot at least, but she was actually pretty tall for her age and the top of her head was level with his eyes. He still looked down on her, but not by much. Maybe if they'd both been alive he'd have felt a little upset, but since neither of them were going to be growing anytime soon any small amount of height he had over her was enough for him.

"Why're you staring at me?" Lenore asked with an edge of amusement, and he scrambled for an excuse before landing on the old back-and-forth teasing that he and Lenore so often exchanged.

"You have the worst bed-head in the history of the universe," he said, even though it wasn't true and the memory of her soft curls against his hands was enough to make him blush. True, she did have sort-of-dreadlocks where her hair had tangled into thick coils from not being brushed so long, but since most zombies went completely bald within a few decades of their death she was far superior to most undead when it came to this particular trait. Lenore didn't know that though. In fact, Ragamuffin was pretty sure that she hadn't met another zombie in her whole afterlife, an assumption that was proven true when her hand flew to her forehead and brushed back along her hairline as if searching for 'you have bed-head' in Braille.

"I do _not _have bed-head!" she said indignantly after thoroughly checking her hair. "_You_ have bed-head."

"No I don't." Ragamuffin said with a grin, adding insult to injury by not even checking.

"Well. . . well. . . your head is _stupid!_" Lenore settled on a rather silly insult, probably unable to come up with anything better when her brain was still coated in the fluffy remnants of sleep. That didn't stop Ragamuffin from raising his eyebrows at the weak derogative (Stupid? Really?) and she scowled before stomping out of the room halfheartedly. "I'm taking a shower!" She yelled over her shoulder. "See you later, stupidhead!"

"Alright, bedhair!" he called after her, then flopped back down on the couch with a grin. He made a face as his shoulders banged against the wooden frame of the couch, bringing attention to his sore back. The pain wasn't enough to dampen his good mood, but it was plenty to make him seriously reconsider his sleeping arrangements. _I have _got_ to get a coffin_. He mused, then felt his cheeks start to burn as he remembered the warm feeling of Lenore's head on his shoulder as he slept. _Then again, maybe it could stand to wait. Just a bit._

Ragamuffin blushed a deep crimson at that last thought and looked around for something to distract himself with. His gaze swept past various paintings, windows, armchairs and board games and eventually landed on a TV remote. He reached for it with a shrug and flipped on the television.

Now, by all rights, Lenore really shouldn't have had a TV in the first place. She'd died long before they'd been invented, and the mansion she lived in was even older than she was. Lenore could probably get along quite well without electricity or things of the sort, and in fact had done so for decades before Ragamuffin had been freed from his curse.

Then came the twenty-first century. Lenore, being Lenore, had adapted to the changes readily and with ease. After all, she was ten- and although things like hairdryers and electric lighting must have seemed magical to her, she accepted their existence with open arms. To hear her tell it, for years her favorite place to be was an electronics store downtown where she would play with the newest inventions until she was kicked out for accidentally electrocuting a few people. Then Taxidermy got electricity installed in Lenore's mansion, changing her afterlife forever and cementing his place as one of her favorite people in the world.

Ragamuffin had had a bit more trouble with the advances that had been made (one had to remember that he _was_ four-hundred years old) and when he'd been revived as a doll he spent a lot of time staring at light switches without the courage necessary to flip them on. It had taken months and a lecture from Taxidermy about how electricity worked for him to accept it as part of his existence. But once he had, he'd had a blast learning about each and every little thing from this strange new world. Television was no exception. He was a teenager, after all, and what teenager doesn't enjoy rotting their brain cells in front of flickering lights?

Ragamuffin flipped through channel after channel, different colored lights washing over his face. He skipped past two reality TV shows, three or four rival cooking shows, and at least five different channels devoted entirely to OneDirection. He stopped on some movie about the zombie apocalypse, and smiled his way through about forty-five minutes of brain-munching gore (which made his stomach growl loudly) before the directors saw fit to slap in a romance scene.

"I. . . I _love_ her, but she doesn't love me back," one of the zombie slayers was saying to the other. The 'her' in question was currently inside a building of refugees while the two boys who people seeing this movie would inexplicably ship were patrolling the perimeter. Ragamuffin was pretty sure the second one, the one not in love, was going to die within the next ten minutes.

"You're worrying about this during an _apocalypse?_" the doomed guy said. "You could die any minute! _She_ could die any minute!"

"But. . . but I _love_ her!"

Ragamuffin sighed and glanced at the clock. It had been almost an hour and Lenore _still_ wasn't out of the shower yet. What was it about girls that made them take so long bathing? Were they somehow aware of a whole other layer of dirt than boys could see? And why did that 'sight' always kick in just in time to make their bored friends sit through a mushy romance scene?

Ragamuffin listened to a few more lines of flowery fluffiness, then the zombies came in and ate the guy's friend just like Ragamuffin had predicted. That made him smile for a bit, but then the blood spattering over the camera lens was enough to make him change the channel once again as he fought the sudden urge to make some carnage of his own. He wound up hovering over a news station, thumb millimeters above the 'change channel' button, as he scanned the screen for anything interesting. What he found. . . well, 'interesting' wasn't quite the right word. 'Petrifying' might be a little nearer the mark.

"-was discovered early this morning in a back alley," the reporter- a young woman with a smile too wide for the occasion- was saying, "By a three-year-old who had wandered away from his parents while they were out shopping. He immediately ran back to his mother, terrified, and it took her and the boy's father almost three hours to coax him to tell them what was wrong. When he finally did, they investigated themselves rather than call the police- their son was prone to making things up, and they didn't want to get the authorities involved just because of a tall tale."

Ragamuffin pulled his knees up to his chin, hugging them to his chest. There was a heavy chill like ice in the pit of his stomach, and he was suddenly very aware that he wasn't breathing. He had an awful feeling that he knew exactly what this was leading up to. Maybe it was that the alleyway the reporter was standing in looked all too familiar. Or maybe he was just jumping to conclusions. Being paranoid.

"However, when the child, who is remaining anonymous due to the wishes of his parents, led them to the alley he'd discovered earlier, they saw that what he'd told them was all too real. This is what they found." The camera then panned over, revealing a shot of yellow crime scene tape, then a blanket of sticky red on the pale gray tar, and then. . .

Ragamuffin wanted to cover his eyes, but he knew it wouldn't help block out the onscreen carnage. Carnage he was all too familiar with. "Shit," he whispered. "I didn't think they'd find her this fast."

The screen displayed a full-color, high definition image of a teenage girl slumped against the wall of a brick building. She had matted brown hair and some sort of private school uniform, a blue skirt and button-down shirt and jacket that were now filthy beyond repair. Her throat had also been ripped out, which was probably the main concern of the police officers milling around her.

"Thirteen-year-old Rebecca Owens was found dead at the scene, and experts estimate that she died sometime late last night. Her parents noticed she was missing the night before, but didn't report it because they assumed she was at a friends' house and had forgotten to call. They only became worried when she hadn't returned in the early afternoon, and when they finally called the police it was easy for them to match the missing child to the discovery of the corpse.

"The original theory about Rebecca's death was a wild animal attack, something that seemed completely logical given her wounds."

Ragamuffin breathed a sigh of relief. So they didn't think the murderer was a person. He could probably skate by like that, let them keep thinking what they wanted to, and as long as he didn't leave any evidence to the contrary they'd keep on ranting about how dangerous the imaginary beast was, how they should be careful on the streets at night, and if there were more victims they'd brush it off as carelessness and bad luck, and-

Waitasecond– _original_ theory?

"But when forensics investigated further," the lady continued, still grinning, "They discovered that the teeth marks on Rebecca's neck were not those of an animal, rather, they belonged to a human. To deepen the mystery of Rebecca's death even more, closer examination revealed that only a fraction of the amount of blood usually present in the average teenager was on the ground near the body, even though she died primarily of blood loss.

"Is there a killer on the loose? Can anyone explain what could possibly have been going through the murderer's mind when they committed this atrocity?"

_I can tell you what's going through their mind _now_._ Ragamuffin thought dryly. _It basically boils down to 'I am soooooo screwed'._

The reporter kept going and Ragamuffin felt the words washing over him like waves on a beach. He kind of felt numb as he realized that, while people may have been able to gloss over the presence of a vampire in Nevermore back in the sixteen-hundreds, there was no way it was going to go unnoticed in the twenty-first century. Hell, if they could tell that the _teeth marks_ on the girl's neck were human (technically vampire, but he would let that one slide), it wasn't going to be long before they came knocking on the door of Lenore's mansion. And since Lenore had no idea about any of this, that was going to create one big, awkward mess.

_Oh, look, they're reading her obituary._ Ragamuffin thought absently, with a kind of sick curiosity._ I killed an honors student in the 'gifted and talented' program. Who graduated middle school at the top of her class. Would have gone on to a great future. Swell. Are they _trying_ to make me feel bad?_

"Whatcha watching?"

Ragamuffin sucked in a breath of sheer panic and scrambled for the remote control. After a moment he caught it in his palm and bashed his other hand down over the power button, turning the cold glow of the screen to an empty blackness in which he could easily see his panicked expression reflected back at him.

"Lenore!" he gulped. "You're out of the shower?" Then something mirrored in the corner of the TV screen caught his attention and he turned to look back at the little dead girl. He couldn't stop his mouth from dropping open at what he saw.

"Did you. . ? What did. . ?" he stuttered, then took a moment to pull himself back together. Two gigantic shocks in as many seconds was probably a bit much for him.

Lenore smiled with a hint of mischief caught in one of her dimples. "Did I what?"

". . .did you spend that whole time _brushing your hair_?" Ragamuffin asked incredulously. For instead of the near-dreadlocked curls that he'd grown so used to, Lenore had (somehow) managed to tame the tangled mess which now fell freely to frame her angelic face. . . a face that was now looking decidedly _less_ angelic and a lot more mischievous as she took in his stunned expression.

_So _that_ was what took so long._ Ragamuffin thought in a way that was more to give his brain something to do than to actually draw a conclusion. It felt like his brain had had a few thousand volts run through it, and going from a state of cold terror to warm, fuzzy surprise was too big a transition for him at the moment.

"Yeah. Nice of you to notice." With a huge smirk, Lenore turned and reached up to pin her hair back with her favorite little skull clips. "It took me _forever_ and about three bottles of conditioner."

Ragamuffin fought the urge to smile, then the urge to frown and finally the urge to bang his head against the wall. He wasn't really surprised by the fact that she'd brushed her hair. What he _was_ surprised at was that she'd done it because he'd made a passing comment that didn't even _mean_ anything. On the one hand, it meant that Lenore thought his opinion was important and had taken it into consideration (which was what made him want to smile). _Then_ it had hit him that he'd just caused her to change the way she looked for no reason at all (the cause of the frown), and then wondered why she even cared in the _first_ place, or why _he_ even cared that she cared, or why he felt guilty or why girls were so _confusing_ sometimes (and although banging his head against the wall _probably_ wouldn't help, he was willing to try it anyway).

Lenore fumbled with one of the clips and it fell to the carpeted floor with a _thumph_, rolling under the couch to bump against Ragamuffin's foot. He sighed, picked it up, and stood up.

"Here, let me help you with that." Ragamuffin suggested as he swung around the couch and stopped in front of Lenore. He could now see what the couch had covered- that Lenore was still in her bathrobe. She'd headed straight over from her shower to show him her hair, something that confused him even more. Had she wanted to prove him wrong about her bed-head? Show him that she'd won that particular argument?

. . .Impress him?

Ragamuffin shook his head to clear out his last thought and reached out, lifting one side of Lenore's now-past-her-shoulders bob of hair up over her ear before clipping it firmly in place and repeating the process on the other side. She beamed up at him and he found it impossible not to smile back, even though his smile was only a fraction of a ghost of hers. You probably couldn't even see the slight upturn of his lips, because they were dragged down by the weight of the things he wanted to say.

"You look beautiful."

That was one of them.

"I was only joking about the bed-head."

That was another.

And then there was the one that he truly, _desperately_ wanted to be brave enough to say.

"You looked beautiful _before_ you brushed your hair."

But he didn't say any of them, and the moment slipped through his fingers even as he realized he wanted to hold onto it forever, to stay there seeing her smile up at him for the rest of his eternal, deceitful, _stupid_ afterlife.

Just because he knew he didn't deserve something didn't make him want it any less.

"Thanks, Raggy," Lenore said, snapping him out of his daze.

"Don't call me that," he said automatically, but she continued as if she hadn't heard.

"I'mma go get dressed!" She tossed over her shoulder as she skipped down the hallway, then poked her head back around the corner. "By the way, you're taking me into town tonight since I didn't get to go during the daytime and it's _your_ fault that I can't read the next issue of Johnny The Homicidal Maniac."

Ragamuffin blinked. "Huh?"

"You said so last night."

"When did I–"

"You _agreed_ that it was your fault!"

". . .I'm pretty sure that's the _opposite_ of what I said, yeah."

"Thanks!"

". . .for what?"

"You just said 'yeah'! You agreed!"

"Um–"

"So where are we going?"

"Wherever you want, I guess."

"Yay!"

"But you better hurry and get dressed or we won't get there in time."

"Don't rush me! It was _your_ idea in the first place, you know." Lenore raced off to her room and Ragamuffin mentally rewound their conversation, trying to figure out at what point exactly he'd stopped arguing and started agreeing. He couldn't find it.

_You are a _lot_ smarter than you let on, little miss dead girl,_ Ragamuffin thought. _Now if only you had some common sense I could leave you home on your own sometimes._ It was _ridiculous_ how protective Ragamuffin had become of Lenore. She'd been on her own for years before he'd shown up, and yet. . .

He just couldn't stand to think of her getting hurt.

Ragamuffin switched the television back on, but the broadcast was over.

LINE BREAK **B/N:** SO YOU GUYS CAN PEE OR GET SNACKS. THIS THING IS THAT LONG.

"Whoa! Ragamuffin, come look!"

Ragamuffin sighed and allowed Lenore to drag him over to yet another window display, cursing himself for agreeing to this. It was one thing to agree and quite another to prepare himself to be yanked by his wrist to every. Single. Freaking. Store. In the _whole_. Freaking. Mall. Not to mention all the weird looks they were getting from random passersby. Ragamuffin had to consider that an oddly pale ten-year-old in a black funeral dress running around with an even paler thirteen-year-old who, challenging every modern fashion imaginable, was wearing a vintage suit. Of course, it couldn't help that he was stumbling around like he was drunk in an effort to keep his eyes shaded by his hair. Tilting your head forwards and being towed at breakneck speed just didn't seem to be compatible.

They whipped around in a hairpin turn as something else snagged a prime spot of Lenore's attention and Ragamuffin flailed wildly with his free hand, frantically trying to compensate. His left foot slipped out from under him and he tumbled forwards onto the ground. He might have been able to catch himself if his one free hand wasn't trying to smooth his hair down over his telltale crimson irises. He felt Lenore's small fingers slip out of his and her footsteps continued for a few paces before they faltered, paused, and then slowly clicked back towards him. He heard this, but didn't see it because his face was busy being flattened against the linoleum.

"Are you alright, Raggy?" she asked. Her feet, knees, and the edges of her hair slipped into his field of vision as she knelt down in front of him, peering at him curiously. He mumbled something that was muffled by the floor, and felt grit and mud from various shoes working their way between his teeth as he did so. God, he _hated_ this town. "What did you say?" Lenore reached under Ragamuffin's shoulders, helping him to his feet.

"I _said_, don't call me that." he repeated a little louder. Lenore let go of his shoulders, letting him fall back to the ground.

"You're alright," she confirmed in a flat voice, popping up to her feet again. Ragamuffin struggled to his knees, spitting out a mouthful of detritus and scrubbing at his mouth with the back of his hand. As his fangs and lips parted company he felt something warm slip into the gap. He tasted blood in his mouth, and even though he knew, _knew_ it was his own he felt an overpowering _yank_ somewhere deep inside his chest. He gripped his knees tightly, fighting the urge to tackle the nearest human. The pain of his fingers digging into his skin was barely enough to keep him distracted, to let him ride out the bloodlust, but 'barely enough' was all he needed.

Lenore's voice slowly filtered through the red haze surrounding the teenage vampire. "-ffin? Hey, are you still in there? Ragamuffin?"

Ragamuffin took a long, deep, calming breath and looked up, forcing a relaxed expression onto his tense face. He pried his rigid fingers off of his knees, unsurprised when they came away with blood caught under the nails. He'd ripped ten neat little holes through his pants. "I'm fine. I must've killed a few brain cells when I banged my head. That's all."

"You had a few left?" Lenore grinned, then held her hand out to him. He took it carefully, trying not to get any blood on her wrist, and pulled himself to his feet. She looked at him carefully, studying his face, and reached over to swipe her free hand across his mouth. He gritted his teeth at the sudden desire to dig his fangs into her wrist and tried to hold himself in check. When Lenore pulled her hand back and he felt a moment of fleeting panic when he saw it was coated in crimson, but she scrunched her face up in what he knew to be disgust rather than pain and he realized the blood was his own.

"You split your lip wide open," she said. "There's blood all down your face."

"Ah, I'll be fine." Ragamuffin brushed it off. "I'm a vampire, remember? We heal fast."

Not that that really mattered. If Ragamuffin had been at the top of his game, he wouldn't have fallen at all. He _certainly_ wouldn't have gotten hurt, and even if he _had_ the cut would have closed over before Lenore had even noticed he'd hit the ground. He was slipping.

Ragamuffin made a face at that last thought and glanced around, searching for the nearest water fountain so he could wash off his face. "Do you see a bathroom anywhere?" he asked Lenore absently. "There're usually water fountains next to the entrances."

Lenore looked around, shrugged, and then started pulling him around by the wrist once again– more gently than before, Ragamuffin was surprised to note. "C'mon, I think there's one over by the comic store."

"You just want to go read Johnny The Homicidal Maniac, don't you?" Ragamuffin smirked, then winced at the pain that cut through his bottom lip as he did so.

"Yup." Lenore said happily, not even bothering to deny it. Ragamuffin rolled his eyes at her open tactics, then saw his chance.

"Why don't you go on ahead while I find a sink or something?" Ragamuffin suggested. He crossed his fingers, the ones hidden in his suit sleeve, hoping that she'd agree and he'd have a chance to grab a bite somewhere else. Usually, once Lenore started reading those comics, she'd be off in another world and completely lose track of time, so he was fairly sure she wouldn't notice if he was gone a bit longer than he said he'd be.

Lenore hesitated, eager steps slowing. ". . .you sure?" she asked, looking back up into his eyes, pale blue meeting fiery red. "Usually you throw a fit when I'm out here alone."

Ragamuffin felt a twinge of guilt, but he shoved it back down deep inside. If he didn't feed soon, it was going to be a lot more dangerous for her to be around him than to be alone in a mall at night. "I'll just be gone a bit, and besides, you're in that store all the time. They can keep an eye on you."

Lenore let go of his hand and crossed her arms, glaring at the ground between Ragamuffin's feet. "You say that like I need to be looked after." She lifted her eyes back to his. "I don't need to be babysat, right?"

Ragamuffin hesitated, opened his mouth, then closed it again and did the safe thing: kept his silence. When she looked back up at him he nodded supportively and gave her a not-quite-so-sincere smile. She raised her eyebrows at him, a smile playing around the edges of her mouth, then she rolled her eyes good-naturedly and gave him a hug before heading off in the direction of the comic store.

"See ya in a bit, Raggy!" she called. He smiled after her, a smile that slipped off as soon as she looked away. He watched until her floor-length black dress vanished into the swirl of people, then turned away. He pulled his sleeve down over his hand and caught the end in his fist, wiping it over his face to get rid of the blood. He quickly checked his reflection in a darkened store window to make sure he'd gotten it all off, then let his hair sweep forwards to cover his face again and walked off into the crowd. He didn't really know where he was going, but he was sure that he most definitely _wasn't_ looking for a bathroom.

Ragamuffin let himself shut down, wandering through the mall until he exited onto dark, nearly silent streets. By the time he'd reached a more populated area of the city, he'd completely ditched the persona he used around Lenore– the sarcastic and stern (but funny!) teenage vampire– and reverted to the personality he'd had before they met, the cold, dark, merciless night stalker who swept through the streets with no sound and pounced with no warning.

Ragamuffin didn't really think as he tracked the sound of pounding music and the scent of adrenaline through the town of Nevermore, acting instead on instinct built up in four hundred years. He wasn't really surprised when he came to stop in front of a club, like he'd chosen the destination without remembering. He pushed his way in through the double doors and was immediately assaulted by the loud, heavy bass of whatever pop song was blasting at the moment. It had been deafening with the doors _shut_, thanks to his supersensitive hearing, and he felt like he had actually been struck when it hit him without any damper. Scowling, he pushed forwards into the club and looked around, wanting to get this over with. Almost everyone in the crowded room was already dancing with someone else, but there was one group of girls in the back of the room who were without an escort and throwing flirtatious looks in his direction. One of them noticed him looking and giggled loudly, turning back to her friends and causing them to giggle as well. Ragamuffin had to focus hard to see them as they really were– pink T-shirts and skinny jeans– rather than petticoats and flowing gowns. A smirk flitted across his face. Apparently girls were the same no matter what century you were in.

He walked slowly over, each step increasing both the girls' heartbeat and laughter. He stopped right behind the one that had first looked at him tapped her lightly on the shoulder. She turned around and grinned up at him. Then she giggled. He was starting to wonder if she'd ever do anything else.

"You wanna dance?" he asked, struggling to keep his voice level even as it started to rasp with hunger. She giggled again and put her arms around his shoulders, starting to sway from side to side. He went along with the motion, placing his hands on her waist as she made some sort of gesture telling her friends to clear out. They did so quickly, giggling the whole time. Airheads, all of them. Ragamuffin kept up the back-and-forth swaying thing but let his mind wander to the time in the near future when he'd turn her cheerful giggles into terrified screams.

The screaming blasting out of the speakers at the front of the room changed in pitch and Ragamuffin realized that the 'song' that had been playing had changed to a different one with roughly the same lyrics. He was tired of waiting and figured he'd delayed long enough. He bent closer so the girl could hear and asked if she wanted to go outside. She responded, as ever, with more frantic giggling. He took that as a yes and pulled her through the doors, slipping into an alleyway next to the club. She closed her eyes and leaned in towards him, puckering her glossy lips for a kiss. Instead, he clamped his hand over her mouth and grabbed her shoulder, pinning her against the wall of the alley. She made a surprised, panicked sound but it was muffled as it slid through his fingers. Her eyes were probably pleading with him to stop but he was having none of it. He could smell the adrenaline in her bloodstream, hear her heartbeat skyrocketing, taste her between his teeth. . .

Ragamuffin wasn't exactly sure when he'd bitten her, but that didn't really matter. All that mattered was her blood as it ran over his tongue and down his throat. _God_, it tasted good- like sunlight and sweetness and life and things he could no longer possess. He drank it down as fast as the girl's heart raced, each beat filling his mouth even as he swallowed. He let go of her shoulder and wrapped his arm tightly around her waist, pulling her even closer and bracing his jaw against her neck even harder. He dug his fangs in deeper and felt, rather than heard, her cry out in pain. He could taste her terror and that just made him want more. Her heartbeat was slowing in his ears but he ignored it, gulping down her blood at a dangerous rate. He was unbelievably hungry and she tasted _amazing_. Now if only she'd stop squirming around he'd be able to fully enjoy this.

As if in response to his thought she stopped struggling, slumping against him as she finally passed out. He let out a happy little moan and moved his hand from her mouth to the back of her head, tilting her chin up to give him more room. This was his favorite part, but also the shortest, because a few heavenly mouthfuls later the girl's pulse stopped altogether. He slowly lifted his head, running his tongue over the twin puncture wounds to get the last few drops of blood, then dropped her corpse onto the pavement. He briefly considered trying to hide the body but turned and left instead. He'd kept Lenore waiting too long as it was.

Ragamuffin groaned loudly as he felt the beginnings of nausea stirring in the pit of his stomach. . .

LINE BREAK

"She did what?!" Ragamuffin practically yelled at the store manager. He'd managed to make it back to the comic store without barfing all over the linoleum, but now he was suddenly sick with worry instead. "Where did she go?!"

"I'm sorry, Ragamuffin," the manager said sympathetically. Over the course of a hundred visits with Lenore, she and Ragamuffin had become. . . well, not exactly _friends_, but definitely closer than a bloodthirsty vampire and a near-minimum wage worker had any right to be. "I was keeping as close an eye on her as I could. I swear, I only looked away for a second and she was just _gone_. I have no clue where she went."

Ragamuffin sighed loudly. "Great. Just _great_," he muttered. Then, louder, "Thanks anyway, Annabel."

"Anytime."

Ragamuffin was already off, glaring his way through the shops that might or might not contain a ten-year-old dead girl. He briefly considered talking to the two policemen wandering through the mall if they'd seen a blonde homicidal ten-year-old in an old-fashioned black mourning dress. . . but stopped himself just as he reached the corner of the Starbucks they were munching doughnuts in. It wouldn't be a smart idea for multiple reasons, mostly because, a) he'd just committed a murder (which he was pretty sure was still illegal) and b) the 'homicidal' part of 'homicidal ten-year-old' might grab their attention. Not that it was inconspicuous when he spun on his heel and left when he got within five feet of the cops. One of them actually nudged the other and nodded to him like he was the villain in one of those bad cop shows that Lenore liked, something that made him a lot more nervous than he liked to admit. It was in moments like this that he seriously questioned Lenore's sanity. Did she not _hear_ him when he said to go to the _comic store_?

"If I find her in Victoria's Secret, I swear to _God_ I will leave her there and go home," he growled under his breath. He threw in a few curses for good measure, then checked his language. Although Lenore constantly surprised him with her inventory of swear words, he really didn't want to teach her any new ones and was in the process of training himself out of the habit. She just made it so _tempting_ sometimes. . !

"Raggy!" Ragamuffin was suddenly knocked sideways as he was thrown into a crushing hug.

"Le. . . nore!" he gasped out. "Ow! That re. . . really hurts."

"Oops! Sorry!" Lenore released him and grinned sheepishly up into his glare. "Um. . . hi?"

"'Hi'? 'Hi'?!" Ragamuffin's scowl intensified. "First off, don't call me Raggy. Second, I _told_ you to stay put! I was really worried about you! Annabel said you'd just vanished and I had no _clue_ where you were!"

Lenore looked down at her feet. ". . .I'm sorry," she said quietly, voice starting to break with the threat of tears. Ragamuffin's frown faded away, his features softening. He wasn't really angry with her, after all. He was just mad at himself for leaving her alone so long.

"Jeez, Lenore, don't cry. Just. . . _think_ next time, ok?"

"Okay," she sniffled.

Ragamuffin closed his hand over hers as gently as he could, smiling down at her. "Come on. It's getting late. Let's go home."

It was the third time that day he'd referred to Lenore's mansion as 'home'– twice out loud and once in his head- and the feeling didn't get any less odd with repetition. Vampires, as a general rule, never stuck around in one place very long. It was a necessity of their lifestyle. You can't go around killing people in the same area for an extended period of time before someone puts two and two together and there's an angry mob at your front door. Deep down, Ragamuffin didn't expect this to last any longer. Sooner or later he'd be back to wandering. This temporary 'home' would be long gone.

But that didn't stop him from liking the taste of the word.

LINE BREAK

Ragamuffin fumbled with the ornate doorknob on the equally ornate door of Lenore's mansion. He could only use one arm since the other was currently looped around Lenore's knees. The little zombie had fallen asleep on the walk back from the mall, thoroughly freaking Ragamuffin out in the process. One minute they'd been walking along, arguing about something inane, and the next she was tumbling off the road and into a swamp. It had taken him fifteen minutes to finally find her curled up in the middle of a clump of mud and grasses, and after ten unsuccessful attempts to wake her up he'd grudgingly hoisted her onto his shoulders and started trudging back home. Occasionally Lenore would make little sleepy noises and rub her face into Ragamuffin's back like he was a pillow, something that sent little twitchy shivers down his spine, but for the most part she just sat there being- if you'll excuse the pun- dead weight.

Now that they were finally home, he couldn't even get the door to open while he was still carrying her. If he could just get inside he could drop her off in her bedroom and catch a break, but noooo. . . fate just _hated_ him, didn't it?

"If this door is locked, I'm going to scream," he said quietly, so as not to wake Lenore. "I didn't know Lenore even _had_ a lock on this door. Since when has she ever considered her own safety?" Ragamuffin briefly considered kicking the door down, then decided against it. The sudden motion might make him drop Lenore. Oh, and it would be good to have a door, too.

Ragamuffin gave the door another vicious yank, fueled entirely by annoyance rather than good sense, and was totally unsurprised when it remained stubbornly shut. The only effect the motion had was to bump Lenore's chin from where it was resting on his shoulder, sending her tumbling backwards. Ragamuffin winced in anticipation of a loud _thud_ as she hit the ground, his other hand swooping backwards to try to catch her, but instead he felt a small, cool hand land on top of his and an arm sliding around his shoulders.

"Jeez, Ragamuffin, it's a _push_ door," Lenore's sleepy voice chastised him. Ragamuffin was very, very glad that she was behind him, where she couldn't see him blush.

"Well if I ever got to go anywhere without you dragging me by the wrist, I would _know_ that," Ragamuffin complained, opening the offending door and stomping into the house.

"Stop pouting," Lenore mumbled into the back of his head, and Ragamuffin felt little sparks of electricity zipping through his body. Her breath felt warm as it soaked into his hair, creating a little spot of heat that started to spread slowly through his entire body as she continued speaking. "You're just lucky I woke up before you dropped me or I'd be kicking you into next week."

Ragamuffin managed to keep the tremors out of his tone as he replied. Well, _mostly_. "It's not _my_ fault you fell asleep in the middle of a swamp. Actually, speaking of which. . ." Ragamuffin changed courses, heading for the bathroom instead of Lenore's bedroom. "We better get the mud off your face. And various other places. Swamps are _not_ very clean."

Lenore immediately began protesting, saying that it really _was_ his fault for making her stay up all night just because _he_ was nocturnal, but Ragamuffin was not having any of it.

"If I was the one trying to keep _your_ schedule then I'd catch on fire the second I walked out the door. Vampires and sunlight are not exactly compatible."

"Speaking of which. . ." Lenore began, and Ragamuffin knew her well enough to know that the tone of voice she was using meant serious annoyance/pain was coming his way. He stopped abruptly, feeling the edges of her dress swoosh out over his fingers. _Focus, you moron. . ._

"Lenore, what did you do?" he asked flatly, feeling a black cloud of doom sinking over his equally dark hair. _I'm not going to like this, I can already tell._

"Oh. . . nothing, really!" Lenore said in a bright, innocent voice. A little _too_ innocent. Anyone who knew her at all would know that there was no way she was completely innocent. Lenore was always guilty of _something_. The only times she tried to deny it was when the 'something' was something really, _really_, bad. Ragamuffin growled under his breath and held back a few choice expletives as he lugged Lenore to the bathroom. He didn't like where this was going.

"Lenore, don't lie to me."

_Focus on doing on thing at a time. Sit Lenore on the edge of the tub. Get the washcloth from the rim of the sink._

"Really, Ragamuffin, I didn't do anything."

_ Give her a glare. Run the washcloth under the faucet. Pull Lenore's hair out of her face._

"You've got that 'I just did something stupid' look on your face. Spill it, little lady."

_Start wiping the dirt off her face. Don't think about her skin under your fingers. I said DON'T think about it! DON'T-_

_ Oh, for the love of. . ._

_ Fine, I give up. Think about it, see if I care._

Ragamuffin could feel the clinging dampness of the water, the slightly slimy feel of old soap that Lenore had forgotten to rinse off the washcloth, the little, gritty chunks of dry mud, and- through the tiny gaps in the deceptively rough fabric- the smooth, soft feel of Lenore's cheek. Ragamuffin had to focus hard just to keep his movements brusque and impersonal as he moved up to Lenore's hairline and carefully broke the big chunks of dirt into smaller pieces so that when he pulled them out he didn't take half of Lenore's hair along with them. Underneath the mud, he could just make out Lenore's scent. . .

Ragamuffin was snapped out of his revelry when Lenore unexpectedly responded to his previous question. Apparently, she'd assumed his silence meant he'd been waiting for an answer and had finally cracked under the strain of his so-called 'patience'.

"Okay, okay, I'll tell you!" Lenore carefully avoided his gaze, keeping her mismatched pale blue eyes far away from his steadier crimson ones. "Um. . . so you know how you were saying about bursting into flame in the sun?"

". . .yeah?" Ragamuffin said warily.

_Please, _please_ let her not have come up with some idea that involves me getting set on fire. If there's anyone at all up there, whatever I did, it was not bad enough to deserve this!_

"Sooo. . . ever heard of sunscreen?" Lenore ventured. Ragamuffin shut his eyes briefly, rolling them skywards in the privacy of his own head. Then he dropped the washcloth in the sink, scooped Lenore back up (with only minor protests from her), and continued on his way to her room. This time he was carrying her sideways, like brides and grooms always did on TV (but not in real life), and Lenore linked her arms around his shoulders to keep herself upright. It was distracting, to say the least.

"Lenore, please tell me you don't think that's going to work?" Ragamuffin shook off the wave of overwhelming oh-God-she's-so-freaking-_close_-to-me vibe, and regarded Lenore's stoic face with something akin to fear. "Please tell me you're not about to suggest that I go out in broad daylight with nothing but a layer of chemicals to protect me?"

Lenore didn't bother to deny it. She just let go of him with one arm and pulled the brightly-colored plastic tube out of her sleeve. "I got SPF six-hundred. That should cover it."

Ragamuffin felt his left eyebrow start to twitch. He removed the arm he had around her shoulders, since she was holding herself up anyway, and cupped it over his eye until the twitching stopped. "Ok, I'll give it a try! Just promise me that you'll actually go to sleep tonight." Ragamuffin yanked open the door to Lenore's bedroom and swept inside.

Lenore grinned, momentarily triumphant, but then the grin slipped. "But what if I–"

"You're not _going_ to get nightmares." Ragamuffin interrupted, already knowing what she was going to say. Was this night _ever_ going to be over?

"But–"

"You're not going to get nightmares, Lenore," Ragamuffin repeated. Slowly, like he was talking to a spooked animal. Soothing tones usually worked.

Not that they were working now, as Lenore's trembling lower lip could testify. "How do you know?" she muttered bitterly. Ragamuffin paused, glanced down at her scared eyes and felt tremors shake through her body as he slipped her under her velvety black bedspread. He tried to figure out what to say to make her feel better as he sat down on the edge of her bed with a heavy sigh.

"Because. . . I'm always going to be here. I won't let anything bad happen to you, ok?"

Lenore grabbed the edge of the covers with her pale hands and dragged them up to just below her eyes. "Are nightmares included in the 'nothing bad' package?" her voice came out muffled by the soft fabric.

"I can't protect you from things in your own head, silly." Ragamuffin chuckled. "But. . . there's a version of me in that vacuum between your ears, right?" Ragamuffin reached down and gently rapped Lenore's forehead with his knuckles. She squealed in mock-pain, but quieted down so she could hear his next words. "If the Ragamuffin in your head is anything like the real me. . . he won't let anything hurt you." He smiled down at Lenore. "So stop worrying so much."

Lenore opened her mouth to reply, but Ragamuffin could see that she was done asking for help and was just trying to stall for time at this point. "Go to sleep already!" he commanded with a roll of his eyes, but he smiled too so she'd know he wasn't _really_ mad. To cut off any further arguments, he grabbed the edge of the covers and threw them over her head. She let out a cry of outrage, but Ragamuffin was already racing for the door. He paused by the light switch and turned back just in time to see her free herself from her tangled cloth prison.

"Goodnight, Lenore," he said, and clicked off the light, pulling the door shut behind him. Just before it clicked shut, he heard her call his name. "Goodnight, Ragamuffin! I love you!"

Ragamuffin walked a few paces down the corridor, found a suitable wall, leaned against it, and began to bang his head against the wallpapered wood. He felt _awful_. Lenore had just said the words he'd been longing to hear her say since day one, and she had to go and say them _wrong_. Because what did you say to your parents when they came to kiss you goodnight? Yeah. That. In that exact tone of voice. _Way to make me feel awkward, Lenore._ Ragamuffin thought as he slammed his head against the wall for what felt like the zillionth time. Oddly enough, it was helping.

You know you have relationship issues when slamming your head into a wall is less painful than talking to your crush.

And then someone started knocking on the front door, and Ragamuffin jumped at the chance to distract himself as he hurried to the foyer. At first he thought it was Taxidermy, and then hoped it was Mr. Gosh so he could kick his rival into next week and relieve some stress while he was at it. But then his heart sank as he realized that whoever was pounding on the door was still alive. As far as Ragamuffin remembered (and he had an excellent memory), nobody alive visited the mansion next to the graveyard without bringing trouble with them. His theory was confirmed when he opened the door on two uniformed police officers.

_Ah, shit_, he thought absently, and then marshaled his features into something a bit more typical of a normal thirteen-year-old who discovered the cops on his doorstep and not a serial killer who was thinking 'not _again_'.

"What is it?" Ragamuffin asked, doing his best to sound somewhat timid. He examined the policemen and noticed with an absent sort of horror that they were the pair he'd bumped into in the mall that day. One was on the shorter side, fair-haired, and really needed to lay off the doughnuts. The other was tall, gaunt, and had a face that probably scared thirteen-year-olds that _weren't_ members of the undead. Still, Ragamuffin couldn't bring himself to look intimidated by a rent-a-cop.

The short one answered first. "Sorry to bother you this late at night. . ."

_Good cop. . ._ Ragamuffin mentally began.

"Shut it with the pleasantries already, he knows why we're here," the tall one snapped, yanking out his badge and giving Ragamuffin a long look. As he shoved it back into his pocket, he made sure Ragamuffin got an eyeful of the pistol in his hip holster.

_Aaaand bad cop_, Ragamuffin concluded.

"Actually, I have no idea why you're here," Ragamuffin corrected him. He was trying to look completely innocent, or at least not like someone who'd just committed a double homicide.

"Look, kid, we saw what you were up to today," Good-cop said, smiling.

_Shit._ _I am not ready to go yet,_ Ragamuffin thought. _I am not ready to leave Lenore. If I'm caught this early on. . ._

"I'm. . . sorry?" Ragamuffin played dumb. It wasn't too hard, since his brain was going numb with horror.

"We saw you in town today," Bad-cop growled. "We know what you did!"

If Ragamuffin's heart had still been beating, it would have just frozen over. His hands were starting to shake- a sure sign of guilt- so he shoved them deep into his pockets. _How am I going to get out of this one? And with Lenore two doors down the hall, too! If I get arrested for murder, she's going to kill me!_

"You're coming down to the station with us," Bad-cop barked, reaching out to grab Ragamuffin's shoulder.

_Oh, shit, this is really it. I don't think I can wriggle out of this one! They must have followed me, or I messed up somehow! Why didn't I hide the body better?! I am such a moron! How am I going to-_

But Good-cop reached out and stopped Bad-cop's hand before it could close onto Ragamuffin's shaking frame.

"We don't need to take him in for this! It's not _that_ bad of an offense, you know!" he said with a smile in his voice, and confusion shook away Ragamuffin's paralysis. Good-cop wouldn't be smiling if he knew what had happened, and as for the 'not that bad of an offense' remark. . .

"I _really_ don't know what you're talking about," Ragamuffin said awkwardly. Dammit, his voice was still trembling. Whatever happened to the fearless night stalker he used to be?

"Look, kid, it's ok. I skipped school too, when I was your age," Good-cop said amiably.

"Skipped. . . school?" Ragamuffin repeated dumbly. Good-cop mistook the confusion for agreement.

"It's alright to admit it, we're not going to arrest you just for that. But next time, if you're trying to cut class, don't bring your girlfriend with you."

Ragamuffin felt his cheeks instantly start to burn. Oh, God. "S-she's not my. . !"

"Kid, it's fine, just don't do it again and we won't talk to your parents," Good-cop lowered his voice. "Although I will say, what I wouldn't have given to have a girl like that at your age! You're a lucky guy!"

_I wish_, Ragamuffin thought. Now that he thought back, he and Lenore _had _arrived at the mall _way_ before school let out. The policemen's mistake was understandable.

"You're too soft on him," Bad-cop said with a scowl. He glared at Ragamuffin. "I better not see you skipping school again, do you hear me?"

"Y-yes sir," Ragamuffin said, playing the part of the rebellious teen suddenly scared back onto the straight and narrow, while on the inside he was aching with relief. "I think I'll just go to bed now. You know, because good students always go to bed early."

"You do that," Bad-cop glowered.

Ragamuffin couldn't get the door shut fast enough. The second the half-foot of solid oak was between him and the cops, he slid down the door with a wide, loopy smile on his face. He could hardly hold in relieved giggles. Through the door he heard bad-cop, not sounding so mean anymore, chatting quietly.

"See what I mean? Flash a badge, let them see your gun, glare a bit, and suddenly they're the model of cooperation."

Good-cop chucked. "Did you see his face when you said you were going to arrest him? I thought he was going to wet himself. It's like he thought truancy was as bad as _murder_."

"Teenagers. They're all the same. Reminds me of my kid at home, actually." Bad-cop said, his voice drifting off as he and good-cop started away from the house. Ragamuffin felt his grin threatening to split his face in two. He felt pretty happy about how the day had gone.

And then nausea rose up in the pit of his stomach and Ragamuffin bolted for the restroom. . .


	4. Chapter 3: Melting Ice

**BVQA:** Uh. . . heheh. . . sorry. . . I don't think I've mentioned this, but updates? Me? Very sporadic. Sorry. But I am the one who's updating most often in this fandom, so cut me some slack? Please?

Oh, and once again, a big thank-you goes out to my editor! She's smart, I'm stupid, we go together great.

**EDIT: **Noticed the title was missing. Fixed it.

* * *

Chapter 3

Melting Ice

Ragamuffin knew that there was something very, very wrong with him. The thought felt almost. . . _foreign_. . . in his head, since he knew (knew, knew, knew, _knew_) that vampires didn't _have_ things wrong with them, _ever_. Vampires didn't _get_ sick, or poisoned, or anything like that. It was like the consolation prize for getting trapped in an existential nightmare was that if you were going to die, it was gonna happen fast and it would just be because of your own stupidity. They were immune to pretty much everything, from plague to chugging a tall glass of arsenic.

So if someone could _please_ explain to Ragamuffin why he was currently heaving his guts out in Lenore's bathroom that would be _wonderful_. He was pretty sure that blood coming from _any_ bodily orifice was bad, but that if it was coming from your mouth and you couldn't get medical attention you were pretty much a goner. Which was impossible, of course, because vampires _couldn't die like this_. They didn't just randomly start being unable to eat. Dying of starvation? Yes, vampires could die like that, but not easily or quickly. The longer they went without blood, the more their mind went out the window and they just went for the nearest thing with a heartbeat. Decapitation? Can you think of any living creature that can survive long without a head? Stake through the heart? Kind of, depends on the situation. Burned to ashes? Dead, because a bloodsucking pile of soot just doesn't work. Grenades? Fine, pile up enough TNT and even they can't survive being exploded to death. Other than that, nothing could put a dent in the life expectancy of a vampire. True, vampires_ could_ be contained, having their powers bound like that witch had once done to him, but that wasn't-

Oh.

_Oh._

Ragamuffin let go of the edge of the sink, gasping for air he knew he didn't need. He felt like he'd just been punched in the gut, and it wasn't from his recent fit of gagging. The witch had bound his powers, but who could say that she hadn't done something else along the way? A fail-safe in case her original spell was broken. She'd been powerful enough _and_ smart enough to do it, to get around a vampire's natural immunity to deadly spells.

_Vampires could die of starvation. . ._

Maybe he was just jumping to conclusions. Maybe there had just been something wrong with the girls' blood, although the fact that his last two victims had been vastly different meant that that was _highly_ unlikely. One had been an honor student and the other had been an airhead in a club, but _still_. . .

Oh, who was he kidding? There was just no way. Besides, even if he _did_ know the reason he couldn't feed, it didn't change the fact that something deep inside him was completely and irrevocably _screwed up_, and he had no way of fixing it and no one to turn to.

_The idea was. . . terrifying. . ._

Ragamuffin slumped back against the wall, shutting his eyes tightly. He felt both physically and emotionally exhausted. Just sitting here, unmoving, allowed him to feel the fatigue deep in his bones. The tile floor pressed a chill against the back of his hands where they rested against the floor, but it was nothing compared to the cold slowly snaking its way through his body. It felt like he'd swallowed ice instead of blood and now it was being pumped through his veins, freezing him from the inside out. All he wanted to do was find somewhere warm to curl up and sleep for a year.

Instead, he got up, fetched a towel, and began to mechanically sop the blood up off the floor. It was sticky against his hand and the dry softness of the towel felt disgusting by comparison. He wanted to wrench his hand away but instead he swallowed down another dry heave and kept working. There were two main spots to get, one where he'd spat a mouthful of blood that had come up just as he was entering the room and all around the sink where it had violently splattered out. He could still remember the sound it made as it splashed against the porcelain and washed back towards him, thoroughly soaking his dress shirt.

Ragamuffin noticed that he'd stopped wiping at the floor and tugged at the towel, realizing belatedly that the blood had dried and thoroughly glued it to the floor. He chuckled weakly to himself.

_Of course._

Ragamuffin closed his eyes, pressed his forehead against his knuckles as he gave another futile yank, and let the tears drip onto his blood-soaked sleeve.

* * *

Ragamuffin stumbled out of the bathroom nearly two hours later with red-rimmed eyes and shivers running through his body. He walked to the laundry-room, one foot in front of the other, and yanked open the washing machine.

His jacket dropped to the floor.

Another wave of shudders swept through him with the blast of cold air. He fumbled with the knot of his tie, obscenities he was trembling too much to say running through his mind. His hands wouldn't stop shaking and his head was starting to spin. He only got two buttons undone before he growled in the back of his throat and gave up, yanking the shirt over his head.

_Ow._

Ragamuffin could feel where the collar had caught him under the nose, and he put a hand to the raw scrape before letting out a heavy, bone-weary sigh and letting the shirt slip through his fingers. He wrapped his arms tightly around himself and stayed like that for a few moments, just letting himself breathe. Maybe this was why humans liked doing it so much, because even though the gasps of air were uneven and ragged just _doing_ something he could focus on completely was helping him calm down.

_More like 'cling to sanity'._

Ragamuffin knelt down, scooping up his jacket and shirt and dumping them both in the wash. He missed the start button on his first try but hit it on the third, and a few seconds later the only remaining traces of his horrific night were being erased by the spin cycle. Too bad he couldn't clean _himself_ up so easily.

Ragamuffin caught his yawn in the palm of his hand, finally letting his exhaustion catch up with him, and slipped down the hallway. He considered wondering where he was going, but decided against it. There was really only place he _could_ go at this point, the one place he always went when his world was crashing down around his ears and he needed to feel like he was breathing.

Lenore's door didn't creak as he opened it but she stirred anyway, rolling over to face him.

". . .Raggy?"

He was too tired to complain about the nickname. Instead he shut the door and collapsed beside her bed, crossing his arms loosely over his bare torso. He'd really hoped Lenore would be fast asleep so he didn't have to explain why he was wandering into her room at the crack of dawn, but considering the night he'd been having he knew better than to expect something so lucky.

"Go back to sleep, Lenore," he murmured, shutting his eyes. The hardwood flooring of her bedroom wasn't exactly comfortable, but if he focused really hard he could pretend it was the inside of a coffin. "I'll be out of your hair in a second." He'd just stay here for a little while, then he'd head back out to the couch.

Something soft landed on his face. Ragamuffin cracked one eye open, seeing nothing but an expanse of red. Lenore had dumped one of her blankets on top of him. He sat up, letting it fall onto his lap, and looked over at her. Lenore was flopped sideways on the bed, arms and chin hooked over the edge so they were on the same eye-level.

"You're all shivery," Lenore said softly. "Don't sleep on the floor, stupid."

Ragamuffin rolled his eyes. "I'm fine-"

A pillow hit him on the head. Then another blanket, followed by a second and third pillow.

"Lenore!" he complained, holding up his arms to shield himself. He could hardly bite back a smile when he heard her cheerful giggling. Yes, _this_ was what he'd needed, a place that he could pretend everything was normal. Lenore was always so full of life and vibrancy that it was difficult to avoid being pulled along in her wake, following her into whatever insanity she had planned next. Sometimes it was against the law, sometimes it would end in gruesome deaths, and, sometimes, it was being pelted with stuffed animals at five AM.

"That's it!" Ragamuffin growled playfully, pushing his way out from under the pile that had built up around him. "You're gonna get it!" Lenore jumped from where she'd been picking up more ammunition- a slightly decapitated teddy bear- and ran for the door. Ragamuffin slipped in front of her, reaching out to scoop her up, but she dodged between his arms and out of the room with a shriek of laughter. Ragamuffin spun around and followed her down the hallway, the carpet sticking slightly to his bare feet. Lenore glanced back at him, a grin locked on her face, as she skidded around a corner. He followed and almost- but not quite- didn't notice that she'd pressed herself up against the wall instead of continuing onwards, hoping he wouldn't see her and continue onwards.

"Gotcha!" he announced with a smirk, catching her up in his arms as she tried to run back the other way.

"Waugh! Lemmie go!" she cried, squirming. He lifted her off the floor, ignoring her kicking and screaming.

"Never," he growled in her ear, flipping her so she was facing upwards and he was supporting her with only one arm. With the other he began tickling her mercilessly, ignoring her protests. "I _told_ you you were gonna get it! Surrender now or face the dire consequences!"

Lenore couldn't get anything even resembling words out through her fits of laughter, so after a few more moments of hysterics he slung her over his shoulder and started back towards her room. She was still twitching with giggles when he dropped her onto her bed and scooped up an armful of the blankets and pillows strewn over the floor, dropping them over her head. She squirmed, fighting her way up through the mass of fabric, until her tousled hair and slightly flushed face poked up into the air. Ragamuffin couldn't hold back a chuckle- she looked like a baby bird tangled up in a giant nest. He yawned sleepily, more tired than he'd been before, and leaned down to give Lenore a kiss on the forehead.

"_Goodnight,_" he said pointedly, beginning to stand back up.

She grabbed him in a bear hug, knocking him off balance and yanking him down next to her on the bed.

"Goodnight," she replied with the tiniest of smirks, snuggling up to his chest and closing her eyes. He opened his mouth to protest but she was already asleep. He rolled his eyes and refused to grin, reaching over and smoothing down her messy hair. She'd lost her bed-cap sometime during their tickle fight, but he figured he wouldn't be able to go look for it at this point anyway. If she wanted him to stay there was no force on earth that could pry her arms from around his midriff.

He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep, feeling warm and safe for the first time that night.


	5. Chapter 4: Makeup

**BVQA:** Hey, people! I'm sorry about the wait, but besides the usual excuse that I'm in the school play and it is _eating_ my life, I got pretty discouraged about continuing this story when I only got one review on the last chapter. However, I am not giving up for two reasons. One, I _refuse_ to let a story die unfinished. Two, the sole review came from tearthgrrl, who is the first person who ever reviewed this story and also has left some of the nicest reviews I have yet to receive on _any _story. So this chapter goes out to you, tearthgrrl! You freaking ROCK!

Also: I've realized that, so far, this story doesn't look like it has a plot. It actually does. Bear with me until we get there, and I will love you forever!

**Chicky:** Greetings, my fellow Earthlings, and welcome to chapter four! I try to do my best to get the authoress of this wonderful story to turn out chapters in a timely fashion, but I do a pretty bad job as a cheerleader. Reviews help faaaaaaar more than I do! Anyway, you don't really get to see my comments, but they're there. Nestled in the framework. The play is now over, and we can all move on from the soul-sucking experience that is "Our Town". Anyway, why are you even still reading this? The story is why you're here, right?

*Clicks pen ominously*

**BVQA:** Okay, one _final _note. I will probably go back and do some more editing of this thing later, since chicky brought up some stuff that I should fix but that I _really_ don't have time to get into at this moment. Okay, done! Now go, go read!

* * *

Chapter 4

Makeup

"No."

"Please?"

"I said _no_."

"C'mon, _please_ Raggy?"

"No means no! Now give me my clothes back and stop calling me Raggy!"

Ragamuffin should really have thought a bit harder before leaving his shirt unsupervised in the wash. Not only did things in Lenore's mansion have a nasty habit of literally getting up and walking away, he should have known his luck better than to assume that he'd be able to sneak out of Lenore's room before the little zombie woke up. Instead, she'd risen far earlier than he'd even considered and now he was stuck doing _this_.

"Finders keepers. Nyah!" Lenore stuck her tongue out at Ragamuffin, managing to look even less mature than ten.

"Lenore, this isn't _funny!_ I am _not _going to agree to this!" Ragamuffin seethed. How was he supposed to know that Lenore had picked up more than the stupid sunscreen yesterday? Blackmail wouldn't be a problem if she'd had nothing to blackmail him _into_, but now. . .

"Just put it on for _one_ day, and then I'll tell you where your shirt is! Or would you prefer going out in public half naked?"

Ragamuffin flushed and tightened his grip on the fluffy black blanket he'd wrapped around his bare torso. The blush probably wasn't even noticeable, considering the ridiculously small amount of blood he had in his body, but he'd managed to keep his last meal down long enough that it had taken the edge off his hunger and re-enabled the little things like blushing.

God only knew that he'd be bright red if Lenore dragged him out of the house like this. Still. . .

"Lenore, I am _not_ wearing that!"

Lenore rolled her mismatched eyes, pouting. "It's not like it's a _girl_ shirt, Raggy."

"I was referring more to the. . . _pants_," if you could even call them that, "and the _eyeliner_."

Lenore scoffed. "Pft. It's called _guy-liner_, Raggy_. _All the guys are wearing it!"

"Lenore, when do you even _see_ other guys?" Well, that didn't sound like something a jealous boyfriend would say _at all_, now did it?

"On the teevee," Lenore somehow managed to stick in lots of extra vowels where they didn't belong, just like she was trying to cram reason into her blackmail.

"Right, because Jack Spicer is absolutely the prime example of the human race," Stupid cartoon character would probably run clear to the other side of the globe if he came face-to-face with a vampire.

"Raggy," Lenore's tone was serious, snapping Ragamuffin's eyes back down from where they'd been picking apart the ceiling. "This is nonnegotiable. Put the clothes on, or you'll never see your suit again."

Ragamuffin tried to keep his lip from curling as he looked back down at the. . . _outfit_. . . that Lenore had apparently picked out yesterday. How she'd managed to cram it into her sleeves he would never and did not want to know. The ensemble consisted of too-small pants that were so ripped as to lead Ragamuffin to wonder how they were supposed to stay _on_, much less be _decent_, a black t-shirt with an absolutely shredded hemline and mock bloodstains, liquid 'guyliner,' and enough chunky gothic jewelry that Ragamuffin was certain he'd jingle as he walked.

"And you'll give me my suit back afterwards," Ragamuffin clarified sullenly, realizing with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that he'd lost this round. "_Immediately_ afterwards. As in, the _second_ it's tomorrow I get it back."

"Yup!" Lenore seemed a bit to cheerful for that to be the end of things, but for now Ragamuffin just wanted to get this nightmare over with. He scooped up the 'clothes' and started off down the hallway towards the bathroom, grumbling under his breath. Lenore, thankfully, didn't attempt to follow him. He didn't think he could have dealt with having to chase her off.

The shirt went on alright and fit relatively well, considering that it was torn off just below his rib cage and left his midriff showing. The pants were harder, mostly due to the fact that Ragamuffin kept accidentally sticking his feet through the wrong rip, but eventually he got them on and quietly marveled at how they somehow managed to stay up. Where had gravity gone?

"Oookay. . . now I've just got to deal with. . . this. . . stuff. . ."

Half the jewelry he could leave on the counter- he had no piercings and he didn't plan to add any now- but a couple obsidian bracelets and a necklace with a silver bat pendant passed by the check and were hastily thrown on. Then a thick red belt with black spikes that, upon testing, proved too dull to be used as a potential weapon, and finally a black stud choker that he figured would be reasonably difficult to get around with his teeth had it been a victim wearing it and not him.

He took a moment and stared down at the pound of metal and stone he was now wearing. The brief thought of chucking it all out the window was a pleasant one, but unfortunately it was also one that would end with Lenore probably burning his clothes.

Ragamuffin picked up the liquid eyeliner and stared at it absently. It looked vaguely reminiscent of an inkwell from his earlier years as a vampire, only the top was thinner and more tapered. The black plastic was completely opaque, but when he shook the bottle next to his ear he could hear quiet sloshing noises that told him that there was, in fact, something _in_ it.

Now he just. . . had to figure out how to open it.

Ragamuffin squinted at the top and picked out a faint seam about a centimeter from the base of the bottle. He twisted one of his fingernails under it and tried prying it upwards, but when pain started to itch at the place where his nail and skin connected he gave up on that approach. Maybe if he. . .

No, when he yanked on the top it just slid out between his fingers like it was more slippery than air. Ragamuffin scowled and turned the bottle over and over in his hands, trying to figure out how ordinary humans could invent something this difficult to open. He was a _vampire_, for crying out loud, with the whole 'supernatural strength' 'fanged nightmare' package deal. . .

Fangs.

Ragamuffin lifted the eyeliner to his mouth and bit at the thinner end, keeping careful hold of the fat end with his other hand and trying to wedge one of his fangs into the crack. He twisted it and worked around his jaw, trying to crack the cap off, and after a moment he heard a particularly promising-sounding cracking noise, and-

Oh.

_Ugh._

Ragamuffin yanked the eyeliner out of his mouth and spat into the sink, seeing his spit run black and tasting something foul. At least four hundred years ago makeup had been mostly minerals and crap like that- or, at least, the makeup he'd bothered noticing had been- but now it was some sort of chemical cocktail that was sour and unnatural on his tongue. Ragamuffin swiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, then tried physically wiping his tongue on a towel.

He glanced up into the mirror and saw that it now appeared as if he was wearing smudged black lipstick. Lovely. He tried scrubbing it away with the back of his hand, but to top it all off, this was the waterproof crap that was impossible to get off of your face. He'd seen girls rubbing their faces raw without even putting a dent in the black ink.

Mmm. . . raw red faces with sooo much blood running under the skin and-

Ragamuffin leaned on the faucet knob and scooped up a handful of water, splashing it into his face and blinking rapidly.

Focus.

Right.

* * *

"Ow ow _ow_-" Ragamuffin whined, eyes starting to tear up.

"Shuddap, you sissy!" Lenore snapped, yanking harder on the brush. In response, there was a colorful explosion of pain in Ragamuffin's scalp followed by a colorful burst of language that he barely bit back.

"Jesus, Lenore! Enough already! My hair is not going to stand straight up, alright?!"

"But-"

Ragamuffin growled and wrestled the hairbrush away from Lenore before she managed to introduce him to the miracle of hair gel. The blonde pouted, sticking out her lower lip and tilting her head in just the right way to properly flash her pale blue irises at him.

"No," Ragamuffin growled, tossing the pink plastic brush over his shoulder even as he felt his insides melting under the pressure of the cuteness. "We're done here."

"No more makeover?"

"No more makeover."

"Not even a mani-pedi?"

"Too late," Ragamuffin snarled, annoyance rekindled as he reflexively pawed at the nails of his left hand, now sporting thick, sloppy black nail polish. _If this is revenge for accidentally making her brush out her dreads, I'm going to have to kill a few things. Maybe more than a few._ To be honest, now that Lenore had mostly forgotten about yesterday's conversation, her hair was starting to twist back into thick curls. Looks like he hadn't damaged her self-image too badly, then. . .

The doorbell rang.

Ragamuffin had a sudden, panicky thought that the cops from yesterday had decided on a surprise visit. Lenore bounced to her feet, grinning from ear to ear, and grabbed his hand, pulling him off the bed and out through the hallway.

"Uh, Lenore, maybe we shouldn't answer-" _Please don't open the door to the cops, please don't open the door to the cops. . ._

"Raggy, it's _my_ house! I say we're answering it!"

"Lenore, I'm _serious_," Ragamuffin dug his heels into the carpet, slowing them as much as he could. The newly added combat boots were surprisingly helpful, and although he felt as if his hand was about to shatter under the pressure of Lenore's more delicate fingers, he managed to get the pace down to a crawl. Too late. He could _see_ the front door, large and menacing. "We're not expecting anybody, and-"

Hang on, he couldn't hear a heartbeat. That had been the first thing he'd noticed the night before, the reason he'd known the visitors were still alive, but he couldn't sense any presence whatsoever, as if there was no one-

Oh. Oh, _God_, please no. Not now. There was only one person Ragamuffin knew whose aura was undetectable to him, but now? _Now?_

His suspicions were confirmed as Lenore beamed up at him, this time with more than a hint of mischief in her eyes. "Actually, we _are_ expecting guests."

"Not Taxidermy. _Please_ not Taxidermy."

"I thought you _liked_ Taxidermy," Lenore put on a scandalized air, putting her free hand on her hip while continuing to try to pull him down the hall.

The doorbell rang again.

"Lenore, I look like an idiot!" Ragamuffin snapped, exasperated.

"Now Raggy, you look _very nice_," And so saying, Lenore flung her arms around his shoulders, yanking downwards and toppling him off-balance enough that her next yank dragged him the remaining few yards to the door, pulling it open just as the doorbell began to ring for the third time.

If Ragamuffin didn't know better, he'd say that when Taxidermy's eyes landed on his getup for the first time, the expressionless man managed to smirk. But when he spoke, his accented voice was as calm and emotionless as ever.

"Good evening, Lenore. Ragamuffin."

"Good. . . evening to you. . . too. . ." Ragamuffin ground out, staring at the crimson carpet that he assumed was the same shade as his face. Only Lenore could manage to pull a blush out of him at this point, but he wasn't exactly giving out awards.

"I like the new look."

"Mmm," Ragamuffin refused to look up. _Refused_, dammit!

"The lipstick really pulls everything together. Very nice."

"Don't make me kill you."

Taxidermy made a sound that, were he a completely different person, could be interpreted as a giggle.

"Well, come on!" Lenore said happily, grabbing the. . . whatever Taxidermy was by the heavily stitched-up hand and leading him into the mansion. Ragamuffin reluctantly followed, but not before slamming the door so hard he could swear the foot-thick slab of oak started to crack.

"Manners, Ragamuffin," Taxidermy called over his shoulder, but this time the smirk had transferred itself to his voice. Ragamuffin felt his painted nails digging into the palms of his hands but he knew the layers of nail polish rendered them too dull to draw blood.

Blood. . .

"I'm gonna. . . step out for a bit," Ragamuffin mumbled, pretending he didn't know what he was saying even as he spoke. Taxidermy's head turned sharply back to him, and this time it was something midway between concern and suspicion in his voice.

"I'm sorry, what was that?"

Ragamuffin couldn't meet his eyes. "I, uh. . . I'll be right back."

"Whaaa?" Lenore gaped at him, aghast at having her fun spoiled and looking extremely let down. "But. . . but we were gonna have a tea party! Taxi, tell him! Make him stay!"

_Taxi?_ Ragamuffin thought, then, _At least I'm not the only one she makes up stupid nicknames for._

Taxidermy gave him one last long, lingering look, and Ragamuffin couldn't decide what the unease in those shining black eyes meant. Then he turned to Lenore and the worry was wiped away, replaced with a cheer that Ragamuffin couldn't even tell was fake. He breathed a sigh of relief as Taxidermy began to lead Lenore off towards the living room.

"He'll be back soon, Lenore! Until then, I've got a movie that I _know_ you've been wanting to watch. . ."

"Is that 'Violence And Unicorns' _un-rated?!_" Lenore squealed. Ragamuffin caught sight of her snatching a DVD from Taxidermy's hands just as the pair rounded the corner Ragamuffin had previously been dragged through against his will.

_This sucks_. Ragamuffin thought, scowling at the carpet. _At least he couldn't lecture me about feeding in front of Lenore_.

But he really couldn't have asked for help, mainly because there was literally _nothing_ Taxidermy could have done. Spells could only be broken by the one who cast them, or by the reversal spell. The witch was not going to be reversing anything anytime soon, except for maybe turning over in her grave now that he was back in vamp mode, and the counter spell, whatever it was, had died along with her.

Every undead had dealt with the horrific experience of having to claw their way out of the dirt, but they'd all put it behind them. Now, however, the sense of being trapped closed over Ragamuffin's head like the last shovelful of dirt at a zombie's funeral.

_There's nothing I can do._

_ Nothing_.

* * *

Sharp, high-heeled footsteps echoed down the corridor. The dark-haired woman was a stain against the whitewashed wall, clothes contrasting the purest white with the deepest black. A door somewhere behind her slammed open but the woman didn't flinch, not even when a second black-suited figure joined her side. His pace indicated that, while he wasn't hurrying, it was only for the sake of appearing professional and his flushed face showed he'd been running to catch up.

"Let me guess, there's been another one found. Young, teenage, and if not female than at least attracted to the male gender. Throat torn out, blood drained, probably dumped in an alley and all the valuables were left as they were."

The man scowled. "I hardly see why you need me if you can figure all that out on your own."

"Nonsense. I need to know where, when, and although it's less important, I'd like the gender too," she said briskly, but the assistant figured he was just annoyed enough to pick up some amusement.

He replied and tried to keep his tone neutral. "What you need is a walking case file, not an assistant."

"Don't be grumpy," she suggested.

The assistant sighed. Yup, definitely amused. "Outside a club, last night, female. . . and it was Colonel Mustard in the library with a lead pipe."

"Less sarcasm, please."

"Noted," he replied.

A small smile tugged at her lips. "Noted, but not accepted, am I right?"

"As always."

She sighed, then continued with business. "I suppose nobody has any idea how to take this one in?"

"Nobody's _seen_ it," the assistant nearly whined, but caught himself.

The woman, on the other hand, sounded exasperated. "You don't _need_ to see it to pinpoint its location. Anyway, that's a job for the field agents. You got anything else new?"

The man gave a heavy sigh, then collected himself and stated calmly, "Four more zombie attacks, six new werewolf infections, three requests for an exorcism- two of which were hoaxes- and a few more sightings of that ten-year-old."

This time, the woman sounded interested and not annoyed. "The dead one?"

"Of course. Still haven't figured out her haunt, though."

"Look into that. I've got a good feeling here."

The assistant rolled his eyes. "You and your _feelings_."

"They're the only reason that I'm a rank above you, you know."

The man tried not to sound resentful, but it didn't work so well. "Right." He turned to head back the way he'd come just as the woman reached an official-looking door leading into her office. He was stopped as she called after him, a strange tone in her voice that he'd never heard before.

Worry?

"This vampire. . . make sure it's top priority, alright? This one gives me a bad feeling."

"You and your feelings," the man said once more, but this time he didn't seem to be teasing. "Fine. Top priority it is. But I don't see how it's more important than one of the rouge zombies or werewolves. At least vampires aren't so damn infectious."

He was almost all the way back to the stairwell when he heard the quiet reply. "Something tells me that this one is going to cause even more damage than those two put together."

* * *

**BVQA:** See? Toldja there was a plot! Anyway, that's all I got to say here. . . please, for the love of Ragamuffin, review so I don't give up and abandon this.

*is totally lying through her teeth because she'll keep updating even if there's only one reviewer*

Once again, THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU to tearthgrrl! You're wonderful!


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